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Jay bought flowers for me again...I was hiding around the door in the laundry room so that I could "ninja" him when he came in the door.He was startled and at the same time he jumped, he also stuck these in my face.  It was hilarious.  Isn't he awesome?

How Much Longer Do I Have To Keep This Up? (365)

Date difference from Nov 30, 2011 to Apr 1, 2012

The total number of days between Wednesday, November 30th, 2011 and Sunday, April 1st, 2012 is 123 days.
This is equal to exactly 4 months and 2 days.
This does not include the end date, so it's accurate if you're measuring your age in days, or the total days between the start and end date. But if you want the duration of an event that includes both the starting date and the ending date, then it would actually be 124 days.
The total time span from 2011-11-30 to 2012-04-01 is 2,952 hours.
This is equivalent to 177,120 minutes.
You can also convert 123 days to 10,627,200 seconds.
 
Yikes!  But I'm almost done!  Pretty cool!


Data from http://www.convertunits.com/dates

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The dining room, all done.  For now.  It's a little dark, so I hung my lamps in the corner, and those are my new canvas curtains from Target.com. It seems to be missing something though. The clutter?

365 & Jay's First Day Back to Work

When Jay first left.

A few hours later, she was still waiting for him to get home.

Jay's first day back to work was a royal stinking bitch. I'm not going to apologize for my language either...because it really was. He woke up at the same time I did, and not knowing when first formation was, he just waited and showed up at regular work hours.  As is the norm for the army, there were last minute "plans" being made, and since Jay was standing around waiting for orders, they tapped him on the soldier and sent him out into the world in a milvan, to drive a General around for several days.  Mind you, we just got here, so he has no damn clue where anything is...so a CPT drove side saddle.  Why that CPT didn't just do the driving, I don't know. I guess just because that's how it works.  Jay didn't get lunch until after 3, and spent his entire day running around post like a fool.  I won't bore you with further details, but lets just say that there was no actual plan...and I had no clue what was going on until he was able to come home for a brief twenty minutes to tell me he wasn't going to be home until after midnight. He was supposed to be done today by noon, and be home for lunch but he never showed.  Even better, his kindle battery must have died, because he's not responding to my yahoo messages. Yay!  I have no idea if he's had lunch, or when/ if he's going to be home for dinner. I can't STAND this kind of bull.  You'd think that they would have already had a plan of action, back when the General was first told he had to be here....but NOOOO  they just grab someone at random and stick them in the driver seat, whether they are qualified or not.  I hope to hell Jay drove those guys around as well as he drives his own car, because then NO ONE will ever ask him to do it again.  Jay learned how to drive in Korea, enough said. 

Meanwhile, I had about a week's worth of cleaning to catch up on. Rue thanksgiving vacation.  Ugh.  So, anyway...I mopped, swept, vacuumed, dusted, washed, rearrnged, and laundered.  I barely had time to take a shower after getting sweaty,and  forgot to eat lunch, so I was trying to scarf down some soup before having to drive through the hills to pick Laurel up when I realized I forgot to comb my still damp hair.  I had to finger comb my hair in the car while I waiting outside the school.
Then of course, there was a ridiculous miscommunication with Miah's teacher....or should I say NO communication.  This chick doesn't bother sending info home, she just expects Miah to be able to listen and relay the information to me in a timely manner.  That, however, as you know, is NOT how things happen in the real world.  This woman clearly is a single, childless person who has no clue what it's like to be married to the army, and deal with the thirty minutes of after school chaos every day that renders my children deaf and mute.  Everything comes out sounding like an order...and after 13 years I've had enough of idiotic orders.  Miah came home and ordered me..."I have to stay after school on this day, for this long."  No, she didn't know why, with whom, or where.  I ended up calling the school after twenty minutes of trying to interrogate the kid.  I yelled at the teacher...and I don't regret it.  She said that she was going to "get around to writing a note"  for something that is supposed to happen in two days.  I don't know what planet she's from, but that is NOT how we DO things!  It turns out that she wants some of the students to stay after school to use the internet to play math games.  Seriously?  WTF?  It's like she assumes that we are all PVTs and don't have enough money to own computers or pay for internet.  Either that or we care so little for our children's educations that we won't make sure they do was is requested of them?  I let her have it.  Like I'm going to let Miah say after school with only a Miah-written note on a planner.  Whatever.
Done with the rant....on to the pictures.  When Jay left after the formentioned twenty minutes, Harley stared at the door for a long while.  When I asked her what was wrong she jumped onto the couch and stared out the window. Poor dog. After two plus months with Jay home, she was used to him being around, and he left twice today.  Will she ever get over it?  Will I?

The only good thing about Jay not coming home is that the girls and I get to treat ourselves.  We used to sit at home and mope, waiting for Jay to come home, not eating dinner, not watching tv, not going anywhere because we didn't want to do anything without Daddy.  But, after 13 years, we've learned.  Laurel, Miah and I went to Wal-Mart and got frozen food of our choosing.  I got PF Changs Stir fry and egg rolls, and the girls got pot pie and panini.  On the way to the checkout we spotted the $5 movie bin, and I found "All Dogs Go to Heaven" 1&2 on the same DVD.  Miah doesn't remember seeing it when she was little, and Laurel said I was raising her badly because she missed out.  Laurel also freaked out when we realized that Miah had never had Ovaltine so we had to get some of that too.  Laurel is upset that Miah seems to have missed out on a lot of things that were her "favorites ever" so she's making it her  mission to "educate Miah".  We had a really good end to a crappy day, thankfully.  I might have exploded otherwise.

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That's just PART of my drive to the high school!  I can't wait to see it in the spring...and summer...and fall!  It's going to be gorgeous!

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Jay decided that THIS store is the "landmark" by which he will give me all directions.  It is absolutely immature and ridiculous how funny he thinks the name of this gas station is.  It's even worse that there are two of them, so no matter which way I drive into town I have to see this sign, and he giggles a little bit as we pass.  Ugh...men.

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Our housewarming gift from Tom and Frances!

It was so good....you guys are so sweet...
Thank you!

365 Happy Thanksgiving!

Jay and I woke up to this.  The girls set their alarms to 5am, made the sign, put it up, and started watching sesame street.

Dinner!  It's very small compared to last year...but we were alone this time.

Jay wanted to post the potatoes.  Miah made them with a touch of butter, and CHICKEN BROTH!! lol

I made cornbread stuffing for the first time this year.  It was good, but a little too sweet. I also made my old standby, french bread stuffing.  Yum!

I hope your day was as pleasant as ours was! 

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Sunset, our back yard.

Good night all....Tomorrow is going to be a long one!
Jay and I went to Rolla the other day, which would be something to mention, only because not much else is going on for a brief moment.  I found my bead store, and some samples of stone indigenous to the area. Sara is getting one in her first box of beads in a looong while.  I'll be so glad to get back into my routine! I need yoga, bead boxes, Idle Wednesday, a cleaning routine, and something to occupy my brain! 

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Our house.  Not too much to look at if you ask me...but who am I to complain?  It's warm, and all of my stuff fits!

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Peace and quiet while the kids are at school and Jay is doing Army stuff.  Harley is feeling better now that there is no more chaos and our furniture is here. 

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Dobby keeps trying to get into the window.  This is not helping me defend her when Jay calls her a cat.  Thank goodness she was too scared to jump! 

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When Jay and I "went into town"  we stopped at an outlet mall...and there was a Fossil.  I talked Jay into buying himself a wallet, and I got this awesome camera bag, which I will be using as a purse.  The lady thought I was odd for picking it out for myself, but I think it's awesome.  I love vintage army inspired stuff.  It has a bonus pouch for my camera with padding so it won't get damaged. Awwwwesome!

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What's left of my China.  My coffee pot, half my bowls, and several plates got crushed under fifty pounds of cookware.  Jay and I decided to stop using the China for everyday meals, and we got melamine dishes from Target that won't break.  They are beautiful dishes, so I'm not complaining.  Too much.

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Our bathroom is now a mini library.  I had absolutely nowhere to put these books, but luckily I found these two shelves at a little junk shop inside the PX.  There is just enough space for them.  I think I like it!

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My poor, cramped front room.  I have no clue what pictures I'm going to put up yet, but at least we have a home for the furniture. We moved everything around several times trying to figure out what to do.  It's half the size of our last front room, and I feel a bit claustrophobic.

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All of my antique thingys look pretty good on the top of the cabinets.

My Hoosier cabinet holds all of my gadgets, and Jay got the pot rack up!

I didn't have a place to put my bills...so I used this wooden cheese box, because who wants to run the bills upstairs to the computer area? 

I've always wanted canisters for all of my ingredients, and I finally have enough counter space to do it!

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Jay and I drove the hour to get to Target today.  The road: it was like driving 496 to Bowling Green the entire way!  Holy cow!  OR should I say horse?  It's just like being at home. Tractors on the road in town, horses running loose, hills, mountains, crazy curves in the road, and though it's a paved road, it's bumpy and rough.  If I'd closed my eyes I would have sworn in a court of law that we were on a dirt road.  More later! I need to get a move on...

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The picture I mentioned in the last post.  Can you tell what it is?

A couple of stars. I need a darker night to try this again!

Well, today was interesting.  Jay and I went outside in the 74 degree weather to re-pot my bush, and put the porch together.  Jay was standing on the side walk while I was moving rocks around when I heard him let out a startled "Oh!" There was a snake in the wood chips by the front walk!   My first reaction was to throw the rock I had in my hands on top of the damn thing.  I then went ahead and tossed the rest of them on top as hard as I could and stomped on them.  I figured that if the kids moved the rocks and saw a dead snake they'd freak out, so I started moving the rocks out of the way...and of course using one of the tools in the yard to move the last one just in case.  Since the snake was on top of the soft wood chips, not even my stomping on it killed it.  Jay grabbed the shovel and our compost bucket and I caught the snake and slammed the lid down.  My first thought was to call animal control.  I'm not in the habit of killing things once immediate danger is over, and I'm not going to open the lid to mess with the thing either...I'm not an idiot!  When Jay got off the phone with animal control I knew he was going to tell me something I wasn't going to like.  He gets this funny look on his face, and I can just tell. The guy says to let it go in the woods.  Um...the woods are a hundred feet from my house, and it's no garter snake.  This stupid thing is a baby rattler, and they bite.  It won't kill you, but the venom will eat away the muscle, and it hurts like hell.  I know from experience. 
I decided to wait and think over my options.  I really didn't like the idea of opening the bucket and having my face right there.  Poisonous snakes know that they are bad asses, and they don't run away when they are mad...they chase you.  I finally decided how we were going to handle the situation, so we headed off towards the wooded area with an edger (which just looks like a straightened out hoe) and the idea that we'd put the bucket on it's side, use the edger to pop the lid off, and run like hell, and just in case the damn thing decided to come at me, I would cut it in half with my garden tool.  It wouldn't be the first time I'd killed an animal that was after me with nasty intentions.  Sure enough, when the snake came out of the bucket, it stood up a few inches and after starting in the opposite direction, it started to meander in our direction.  Jay and I beat it out of there, warning a neighbor about it's presence on the way back home.  It was a small snake, but I've seen some nasty and aggressive baby snakes.  The whole thing had me a little agitated.  Otherwise I'd be posting a picture of it right now.  I didn't even think about the camera until after it was all over.

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Wal-Mart parking lot!  lol  It's nice to be in a place where you can see the sky...

We basically did nothing today. We ran to Wal-Mart and put the new curtains up in the dining room. Then we watched the last Harry Potter movie.  I really needed this weekend to relax.  Not that I've been sitting still the whole time.  I keep seeing things that need to get done, so I pop up and take care of them.  Jay keeps fussing at me to sit still.  I caught up on the blog for four hours yesterday, and I think that should be enough.
Jay has had the last month and a half off of work, and we've been together almost every single second of it, so you'd think he'd be tired of me by now. Apparently not though, because he came upstairs to kiss me three times while I was loading photos, and then sent Laurel up here with lunch because he knew I was too engrossed in what I was doing to remember to eat. He's such a sweetheart. 
Miah and I took the pups for a walk tonight, and I was amazed at how windy it is out there.  The woods behind us were loud with crackling tree limbs and whistling wind.  I can't wait to get out there and explore.  Like I said, the sky is huge and open here, so we were able to actually see some stars. I pulled out my new camera and tried out the starry sky mode.  I think I need to wait for a darker sky, but I did get an absolutely amazing shot of something I didn't even see with my eyes.  I'm not sure what the heck it is, but I was aiming at a star so....I'll load it tomorrow, and you guys can tell me what you think.  I'm going to get out there tomorrow with my tripod and see what I can come up with a little later in the night. 
It's probably a good time to take some good pictures of the girls too.   It's too bad there aren't any leaves out there that we can pile up.  Have I mentioned that at this post we don't have to mow?  There is a landscaping company that comes every other Monday in the fall and does all the yard work for us. During warmer months they come once a week.  Jay now has no chores.  I'll have to make something up so he isn't getting off scott free.  lol  Have I also mentioned that we have a two car garage so we don't ever have to scrape ice off a window, or preheat a car again? (Well, at least until the next place.) There are a few things that bug me about this house, but those two little details are enough to make up for it for a while!  I also like being able to unload my car without neighbors eyeballing your purchases. One thing I just can't tolerate is nosy neighbors!
Yesterday we finished decorating the kitchen.  Jay hung my pot rack, and I got all of my China  (What's left of it) organized on the shelves.  I need to wash them before I can really call them good, but that can wait until I get bored one day.  I won't be using them any time soon, because we are going back to using the cheap dishes again.  All the breakage from the move made me rethink the daily use of the good stuff.  I'm not going to have anything left to pass on if this keeps up!
  Tomorrow I'm going to start weeding through the stuff in my closet. The guy that packed my bedroom took all of the clothes that I separated from the closet and folded into a storage tub, and packed them in wads with the rest of my stuff.  So, now I have to re-sort it all and put it away.  Men...How much dumber can you get?  It's going to be a long and irritating process, so I should probably get to sleep so that I can get an early start.  The closet and the Art Room are the only two rooms I have to sort out and organize, and I want to be done!
Until tomorrow...

Getting out of the house is a GOOD thing.

Too many sad things have happened this week.  I don't think Miah can take any more.  Her fish got really sick, after of course, we spent serious money making his fish tank all pretty...and he survived the two day trip over here.  He died today, and Miah really lost her mind.  She's also incredibly upset that my mom's husband's mom Deenie died yesterday.  We've been a little short with each other the past couple of days because of all the moving stress, and emotional blows...so we got out of the house for a while.
We started out looking for a place called "Bo Peeps Ceramics" which turned out to be a store full of figurines, and not cool dish ware as we hoped.  We didn't even bother going in.  Just down the road a bit was a place called the "Talbot House" which was built in the 1800's and was full of cool antiques...and one friendly and funny old man.  He had been a soldier, and a school teacher..retired from both.  He actually got Laurel to talk to him, which is a BIG deal.  She laughed, and blushed as he teased her, and of course he raved over how cute Miah was.  He was so excited about Jay's being a soldier, and kept telling us how wonderful our family was.  I love it when people praise you for your well behaved children.  It's so much nicer than those jerks who want to judge you for the occasional times when they aren't having the best day.
I found  a salt and pepper set there that match the orange pitcher my dad used to drink OJ out of as a kid at his grandma's house.  Little fruit shaped things made in Japan.  Nothing special, except for the story my dad told me about that pitcher and glass set.  I also came away with a coin that Keith (The antique store owner) gave us.  An appreciation coin from the American legion, he said for my service as well as Jay's.  I forgot today was Veteran's day, but I got the impression that he's like this any day of the week.  We talked to him for quite a while, and as he was tallying up our purchases, he ended up giving me the salt and pepper shakers for free.  We will definitely be going back.  We all loved it there!  He had a great old player piano that plays ten different songs...and he cranked that thing up like six times because we were so fascinated  (as is he...you could tell he really got a kick out of it)  he told us all about it, and took it apart so Miah could see the innards.  It looks like a giant music box.  Miah can't wait to go back...and is going to be saving her money to buy a carousel that spins and plays music.  I won't be holding my breath.  She forgets easily.
I know I sort of skipped over Ron's mom's passing...and his cousin Stacy died yesterday also.  I didn't know either of them very well, but my kids loved Deenie.  Miah is taking it especially hard, and we are all really upset for Ron.  I hate it when someone passes away and you have nothing to say.  I hate "I'm sorry"  and saying anything else is really just not good enough.  Ron is incredibly lucky that he had his parents as long as he did.  He got to love them, and get to know them...and spent a lot of time with them.  I hope that he is able to realize how  wonderful and lucky that really is.
Ron...even though you aren't genetically linked to me or my kids, I believe we all choose who our family is.  You are our family.  We love you just like you were our dad, father-in-law, and Poppy.  We are thinking about you, and sending you happy, healing thoughts.  The kids wrote you notes, and drew you a couple of pictures, and just as soon as I find that pesky post office, I'll send them to you. 

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My room, View from the bathroom.

My bathroom, view from the bedroom.  Also my walk in closet, and Jays.

My bathroom.

The rest of the bathroom.

My room.

Miah's room.  A mess already!

Laurel's room.

Linen closet, which is MUCH bigger than the last one! Awesome!

The kids bathroom.

The shower/toilet area.

The stairway (Same carpet we just left, but a different color than the rest of the carpet in the house. Ugh!)

The stairway, and the light I can't reach...and the windows I can't clean!  What?! Why?!?